Spain: Out of the shadows: End incommunicado detention in Spain

15 September 2009, Index number: EUR 41/005/2009

Spanish law allows people to be held incommunicado, which means they have no effective access to a lawyer or to a doctor of their choice, and their family is not informed where they are or that they have been detained. It is one of the strictest detention regimes in the European Union. Many detainees held incommunicado say that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated. Amnesty International is calling for the Spanish authorities to abrogate legislation that allows incommunicado detention and to investigate allegations of torture.